Entrepreneurship

The world’s coal resources have been the foremost source of energy of the world since quite a few years. Coal mining has been in practice for thousands of years and it did not involve drilling or excavating the coal rocks, but was a small scale operation which involved coal resources found on the face of the earth without any effort. Techniques like small scale shaft mining and drift mining started developing over the years because of the dependence on coal increased. It became an important part of trade routes when the Roman Empire entered the coal mining business around the 2nd century AD. Types of coal started having different uses like bituminous coal being used for industrial purposes like smelting of the iron ore. It was also used for leisure to heat up baths or for cooking food. However, the importance of coal increased tenfolds because of oncoming of Industrial Revolution. Industrial Revolution The revolution starting around the 18th century in Britain spread to other parts o...

It was 1988 and, as a teenager, I was smuggled by older friends into the Pink Elephant, the discotheque at the Oberoi Grand, where we danced alongside Swedish sailors to the thumping beats of 1980s pop under the flash of kitschy disco lights. A few years earlier, the same friends had unsuccessfully tried to pass me off as an adult at Max Mueller Bhavan’s European film festival. The perfect combination of intellect and fun, Kolkata, in my teenage eyes, was too cool for school. Twenty-six years later, I’m at Roxy, one of the many bars at The Park Hotel Kolkata, where I meet British expat chef Shaun Kenworthy and his Bengali wife, Shubha. Here, neon lights cast a pink-blue glow on the metal plates that adorn the wall and the DJ prepares to play electronic music, as we raise a toast to the city of… joy? But today, I’m looking for an antithesis to Dominique Lapierre’s Kolkata. Ask anyone about the city of Kolkata and they will break into a romantic reminiscence of a much-stereotyped city—o...